Anatomy of # Plandemi Infodemic: A Case Study on Misinformation Diffusion During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic has spread with the transportation networks of the globalizing world, the infodemic is spreading globally with social media networks. The diffusion potential of social media with its complex structure of mass and interpersonal communication provides the distribution of helpful information. Yet, it can also cause the distribution of information pollution. Information pollution can become massive with the intensified interaction between users and cause infodemic. The World Health Organization secs infodcmic as a global problem that needs to be tackled as much as the pandemic in terms of human health. It leads to information pollution and misleads people's attitudes towards the virus and vaccine. After the video titled "Plandemic: The I lidden Agenda Behind COVID-19" was published on social media platforms such as Youtube and Facebook on May 4, 2020, it spread rapidly and became one of the concrete cases of the infodemic. The video spread rapidly with the shares of the viewers in the two days it was broadcast and reached the number of views close to two million. It has drawn the masses into its magic circle by packaging the COVID-19 claims that are voiced by groups prone to conspiracy theories. Although the video was taken down in a slightly short time, the misinformation it contained remained in circulation globally through interactions on social media. In this research, the reflections of the Plandemic video in Turkey were determined by the content produced by the users on Twitter via the #Plandemi hashtag. The primary purpose of the research is to examine how false information is spread in social media by giving examples. Stuctured as a case study, this research conducts network analysis and content analysis to the posts with the #Plandemi hashtag on Twitter. As a result of the network analysis, power-law distribution has been determined in the interaction between users and message production. As a result of the content analysis, it was determined that there was a contextual overlap with the Plandemic video, especially in the theme of insecurity in the health system. In this respect, the study represents an example of the global fluidity of the infodemic while describing how disinformation is spreading in Turkey in the context of COVID-19.